Postwar-era Vietnam was a time of moving forward, regeneration and establishing a new normalcy.

These images, taken by an unknown photographer in 1979, capture everyday life in the capital. Trams, bicycles and buffaloes all feature alongside marketplaces, train tracks and students listening to music in classrooms.

While much has changed over the last 50 years, what’s pleasing is that many of these things are unchanged — Vietnam remains an exhilarating place to live.

There is something reassuring about being surrounded by life lived in the streets, of the noise and intensity of everything, of babbling markets and motorbike horns, of the earnestness and tenacity of people’s will to survive.

Cities can be intense and confusing places. Yet the vast suburb of strangers can also be home.

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[Photos via Flickr user manhhai]